1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink discharge apparatus which performs printing with respect to a recording medium such as paper (paper sheet) with ink droplets of an ink discharged from a plurality of nozzles provided on a nozzle surface of a discharge head.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink discharge apparatus has a discharge head provided with a nozzle surface. For example, a plurality of nozzles are disposed on the nozzle surface; and liquid droplets of a deep color ink are jetted from deep color nozzles and liquid droplets of a light color ink are jetted from light color nozzles onto a recording medium such as paper (paper sheet), thereby performing printing on the recording medium. When such a printing operation is repeated, in a case that time interval from the previous printing to the next printing becomes great, etc., clogging of the nozzles occurs in some cases. In order to solve the clogging, a maintenance device is provided on a body of the ink discharge apparatus (apparatus body).
The maintenance device is provided with a suction cap and a suction mechanism. The suction cap is brought into contact with the nozzle surface of the discharge head. In a state that the suction cap is brought into contact with the nozzle surface, the suction mechanism is connected to a suction port provided on the suction cap, and the suction mechanism performs suction operation via the suction port, thereby removing ink solid matter, etc. clogged in the nozzles (so-called suction purge process).
In the suction purge process, the suction cap into which the ink is discharged is separated away from the nozzle surface so as to suck and remove the ink discharged in the suction cap, and the suction mechanism performs suction operation in a state that the contact state between the suction cap and the nozzle surfaces is released.
Conventionally, there has been suggested an ink discharge apparatus having a construction in which the suction cap is inclinable with respect to a carriage. In the ink discharge apparatus, the suction cap is inclined so that a portion, of the suction cap on a side of one end thereof (one end side), is open with respect to the nozzle surface and that the ink adhered to the nozzle surface is collected to the portion on the one end side of the suction cap; and the ink inside the suction cap is sucked.